Tales From The Crypt

It may not have been the first, but it was certainly one of the best, and probably the most remembered horror comic book from the post-war period.

It was a long journey for EC Comics to get to Tales From The Crypt.

Max Gaines had his feet firmly planted in the comic book industry. He was an editor going back to the mid 1930’s, working on some of the very first book-form “funnies.” He struck out on his own when the company he was working for was absorbed by a larger publisher.

Max Gaines’ modest little company, then known as Educational Comics, started out in 1944 publishing lighter humor, funny animal and Bible story comics. Shortly after Max’s death in 1947, his son William Gaines took over the business. William, being much younger and more in touch with what contemporary readers were going for, practically overhauled the whole company, which was now called Entertaining Comics, shortened to EC Comics.

William knew that the medium was becoming more sophisticated, and thus more adult oriented, and proceeded to introduce much edgier titles in the “real crime” and “horror” genres, for which he saw other publishers having success.

In fact, Tales From The Crypt, EC’s hallmark book, began life as four other titles before settling in with its new name beginning with issue #20. It started out as International Comics, was renamed International Crime Comics, then just Crime Comics, and penultimately in its proto-horror incarnation as The Crypt Of Terror.

Tales From The Crypt proper began it’s lifespan of 27 legendary issues in October of 1950, by which time EC had already earned a reputation for high-quality artwork and writing. With material ranging from stories of the dead returning to life for revenge, straight up monster and zombie fare, to bizarre murders, including dismemberments, live burials, beheadings, grotesque decaying live corpses and other macabre, graphic images, ECs power was with the creatives that were so excellent at their jobs.

The majority of the writing was done by Bill Gaines himself, and his art-director/co-editor Al Feldstien, with occasional contributions from mainstay artist Johnny Craig, adaptations of Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allen Poe stories,and later in the run Carl Wessler. Some of the brilliant artwork came from the talented brushes of Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, Jack Davis, Al Williamson, Reed Crandall, Bill Elder, Marie Severin, and the aforementioned Johnny Craig and Al Feldstein.

Another unique feature was the added framing device of fiendish running characters that ”narrate” the tales: The Crypt Keeper, The Old Witch, and The Vault Keeper.

EC may have pushed the envelope with increasingly outrageous content, but it was ultimately the publication of Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of The Innocent, an indictment of the comic book industry for supposedly contributing to the rise in juvenile delinquency, that put the nail in the coffin of their horror titles. They soldiered on with other types of books (Piracy, Valor, Aces High, MD, Psychoanalysis, Impact!,Extra!), some of which were quite good, but their bread and butter was their horror comics. In the end, all we got from EC was Mad Magazine - which was great - but it was no Tales From The Crypt!

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